


Every Morning After

by footinsink



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate - Freeform, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression, Weight Gain, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 06:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10848771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/footinsink/pseuds/footinsink
Summary: In the end, it's Gideon Grey who breaks the case.





	Every Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> What if Judy-of-the-droopy-ears didn't make it out to the vegetable stand that day?

This must be what it's like to walk after surgery, he thinks. You see the scars and know that nothing can ever work the same again; you're ready for that. But no one warns you that your heart will break just a little when you take those first steps, because your body is stubborn and stupid and will find a way to keep going, no matter what they take from it, and one day you're going to get dressed and walk out your door and no one will know you used to be different at all.

\--"Unidentified" by fiercelydreamed

 

 

 

 

In the end, it's Gideon Grey who breaks the case.

 

 

The sound of her ringtone tore through Judy's despondent slumber. She stirred and fumbled for the phone. The display read 1:37 p.m.

Sunday. Market day. The burrow was empty save for a few of her siblings. Everyone else was at the farm stand helping to sell vegetables. They would be finishing up now, and stockpiling Sunday’s edition of the _Zootopia Times_ to wrap produce in next week.

Judy Hopps balanced her phone, still connected to its charger, on her breastbone. Without a built-in kink the protective coating on the wire had begun to wear.

She stared at the unknown number flashing a Bunnyburrow area code. Probably a telemarketer. Judy silenced the ringer and let her phone slip out of her paw onto the bedside table.

Her now bare bedside table. The TV dinner trays and candy wrappers had disappeared. Judy felt a twist of guilt in her belly at the thought of her mother picking up after her.

Judy closed her eyes. Her voicemail alert chime was the last thing she heard before sleep overtook her again.

 

 

It was 5:18 p.m. when Judy next woke. Still Sunday. The daylight was yellow and stale through the high window in her room in the burrow. Her phone battery was comfortingly fully charged. A dead battery meant five empty minutes of confronting her reflection. Judy could not bear floating in the dark abyss of a blank screen. 

One new voicemail.

_Pee. Eat. Watch your shows._ Judy was deep in season 4 of Gilmore Growls, arguably the best one. Knocking back episode after crack-like episode distracted her from anything else.

Loathingly, Judy hit play. She didn’t even bother to raise her head.

_“Hey Judy, sorry to bother you. Um, it’s -- it's Gideon Grey. From school? And, uh, the other. The other thing. Judy, I’m really sorry an’ I know I'm the last person you'd ever expect to call ya, but, um, you know those plants your dad grows to keep the bugs off? Couple of your sisters were running too close and your dad hollered at 'em to be careful of the midni--midna..._

Midnicampum holicithias, Judy's mind supplied.

_"--I said well we just call 'em Night Howlers –“_

Judy's perpetually lax stomach muscles tightened.

Gideon rambled on but Judy’s mind was already working. She didn’t delete the message.

_Because_ , she thought bitterly, _I'm Judy Hopps and I don't know when to fucking quit._

 

 

What followed was a ping-pong game of emails and phone calls. The most nerve-wracking one for Judy was the clipped, terse conversation with District 1’s no-nonsense public information officer. The giraffe television reporter-turned-officer, PIO Jan Watertrellis, had grilled Judy for almost an hour. All the info, no secrets, nothing to bite ZPD in the ass.

When it was finally over, the sun had long gone down and Judy’s voice was hoarse. She felt overstimulated and useful, so sickeningly _useful_. Adrenaline pinpricked her armpits.

Judy reached for her phone and scrolled down to Gideon’s number.

_Thank you_ , she typed. He deserved so much more, but it was all she could offer at the moment.

Judy tried to halt the images that sprang unbidden in her mind, of russet fur and forest eyes and a shiny, shiny sticker badge, floating over the threshold of the only place she ever wanted to be.

Judy hit play on Gilmore Growls and sank back into bed. She didn’t want to care, now.

But that's exactly why she was here, because she cared too much.

 

 

Judy watched the conclusion unfurl over social media, numbly fascinated with the flurry of activity on her Tweetdeck. The Night Howler lab, Bellwether, all of it. Fangmeyer and Grizzoli found the lab, abandoned in a hurry. A Half-finished latte was still steaming in a corner.

Her phone rang off the hook for a few weeks. Assignment editors from news desks across Zootopia begged to get in touch with her. They bombarded her email and voicemail, pleaded for interviews, and tried to book satellite time.

Judy turned her phone over and wished for sleep.

 

 

It's when watching Gideon on _Good Morning Zootopia_ , stiff and honest in his too-new suit, trying gamely to answer the host’s questions that something shifted and broke inside of her.

Judy sat up.

_Fuck this shit. This ends today._

 

 

Bonnie’s eyes widened. It wasn't Shower Day, their agreed upon day when Judy would do the bare minimum attempt at cleanliness, Bonnie’s only requirement to let Judy stay home and work through the shit she needed to work through. But here in the hall Judy stood, freshly showered and awake.

“Honey, there’s someone here to see you,” Bonnie said. Her mother sounded pleasantly surprised. She looked at her precious baby kit with something approaching wonderment.

When Judy emerged upstairs, she saw the back of a very familiar fox sitting at the long communal table in the kitchen. Morning sunlight slanting through the round windows. He twisted on the bench, meeting her stupefied gaze. The purplish bruises under his eyes were new.

Judy fell into his embrace and clutched his scary-narrow waist.

 "You bunnies, so emotional," Nick croaked into her damp fur. His eyes shone.

 

 

Her parents didn't object to how much time she spent with Nick in the days that followed. He cut her nails. They went for walks. Nick awakened her earlier and earlier every day, until she was on a normal sleep schedule again. In turn Judy fed him bugs and blueberries, as many as she could find. Sometimes she fed him with her own paws.

Nick held her when she cried after her atrophied arm muscles could barely pull her up a tree. "One day at a time, babe," Nick said.

_You're here, you're alive, you have this. You have me._

Nick came alive under the care of her family. He filled out, the luster slowly coming back to his coat. The whites of his eyes went from bloodshot to creamy and cool again. Bonnie had a renewed skip in her step, seeing her eldest daughter happy.

Like a spell broken, the burrow came alive.

 

 

Judy and Nick were sitting at the long table for breakfast one morning. Around them, her siblings noshed and slurped and quarreled.

Nick tucked into his blueberry oatmeal. Judy drank in the sight of him. His eyelashes were doing funny things to her.

Nick looked up to meet her eyes. He smiled under her gaze and shyly ducked his head, chasing an errant blueberry with his spoon.

Her sister Lilly watched them. “You guys should just get married,” she said, wise as a five-year-old can be.

Which as it turned out, was a lot. 

Nick looked at her.

Judy looked at him.

The table had gone silent. Stu’s eyes were shimmering, and Bonnie had one paw raised to her mouth.

“Judy?” Nick asked.

Judy reached out and pulled at one of his paws with both of hers, turning his knuckles up. She pressed her lips to the back for what felt like a very long time, pulling away to complete the kiss.

“Yes,” Judy said, turning her face up to his. The table erupted as her siblings shrieked. “ _Nicholas._ Yes.”

Nick’s face crumpled not with sadness, but what looked like overwhelming joy. He reached for Judy, pulled her into his lap and held her tight. Then he kissed her.

 

 

"It's time to go home," said his bride.

 

 

Finnick squeezed Nick tight and clapped his hands to his shoulders once, hard. “Let me look at you, pretty boy. Ooo-wee! I thought only carrots grew in Bunnyburrow.”

Hashtags jumped to Judy’s mind, unbidden and silly.

#musclesgrowintheburrow

#bunnyburrowdoesntsuck

 

 

Judy rejoined District 1.

She steadily worked her way up, arrogance gone, proving herself in small and myriad ways until she gained the grudging respect of every officer on the force.

McHorn greeted her with a fist bump, one day.

And every morning after.


End file.
